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91
« Last post by John S on March 25, 2024, 03:11:47 PM »
Yeah your right Jeri, there's 22 F2 champ Felipe Drugovich on Aston's books and Theo Pouchaire 23 F2 Champ waiting in the wings at Sauber/Audi. The rollover of all drivers from last year into this season is not very helpful for the supposed ladder system of F3 to F2 to F1.  Last F2 champ to graduate to F1 was Oscar Piastri, he won 21 F2 season by a country mile and still had to sit on side lines for year. With new F2 champ being forced out of series each year shows how much they need 11, or even 12 teams on the grid with all this talent going nowhere.
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« Last post by Jericoke on March 25, 2024, 02:02:58 PM »
Between Lawson and Bearman, anyone struggling in F1 should feel the pressure.
I'm sure there are other drivers of their calibre waiting for an opportunity to shine like those two took advantage of.
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« Last post by Andy B on March 25, 2024, 05:48:06 AM »
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« Last post by Dare on March 24, 2024, 09:27:04 PM »
Perez had a chance to step and show RB he belongs there
next year....he didn't
Carlos had a chance to show he belongs at Ferrari next
year...he did
Hamilton showed maybe Ferrari won't be the answer he's hoping for
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I'm wondering if it's Perez, or if the Red Bull doesn't work that well in dirty air.
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« Last post by Jericoke on March 24, 2024, 02:08:56 PM »
Heroes:
Max Vertappen's brake failure. I know, celebrating someone's failure is poor taste, but it added some much needed interest to the 2024 season.
Carlos Sainz. There are a LOT of skills involved in being a top F1 driver, and responding to adversity is a big one. Sainz has been cast aside by a team he's driven well for. Knowing his future is in his hands, he has stepped up. AND THEN he has an appendectomy, and comes back to win his next race! There is no one more dialed into driving F1 right now. Most drivers would hate to have this sort of adversity, but it seems like it's just what Sainz needed.
Charles LeClerc. Second place in the second best car. Well done Charles
McLaren. They've put together a great team. It's no mistake other teams are trying to copy their success. I think the other teams forget this was a LONG haul to get McLaren from their bottom of the barrel days to their modern pretty good-ness. Norris and Piastri are talented drivers, getting good results from their good cars.
Alex Albon. Finishing 11th in your teammate's car might not feel heroic, but finishing 11th in a car developed by a team that honestly isn't being run as an F1 team (which they're working on), that isn't your own car, that the entire time your number one thought is 'don't crash' is quite impressive. I think with the gloves off, Albon could have done better, but bringing that car home while fighting with Haas' reckless driving is an accomplishment.
Haas. Double points finish? I certainly didn't expect that. I'm not a fan of the drivers, they're still reckless, but they got the job done.
Tsunoda. VCARB has been a mess so far this year, but solid points is what he needed, and what he got.
Zeroes
Perez. Is RBR genuinely struggling? Or is Perez just not up to snuff any more?
Stake. Of all the millions of dollars of engineering talented involved in F1, getting wheel nuts catastrophically wrong seems so very weird.
Mercedes. The salary cap was meant to stop a team from dominating. Job done I guess. As a Hamilton fan girl it's frustrating to see things go from bad to worse from him. I'd like to think the team is letting him down, but maybe he really has slipped.
Other thoughts:
Some very visual elements to the race. Verstappen's brakes exploding in the pit entrance, Russel's car coming to rest like it was folded in half. I've never seen anything quite like either of those in my 30 years of watching F1
I think the F1 drivers as a whole are trying to get away with more and more dangerous moves. The cars are safe, so no one is (likely) to get killed by a brake test, or a double move, but the sport itself suffers when cars attempting a pass have to think about their safety instead of their pass.
97
« Last post by Jericoke on March 23, 2024, 09:06:25 PM »
This makes me wonder about the finances at Williams. I thought all teams carried enough parts to build a car from scratch if needed.
Williams has been claiming their past financing let them fall behind other teams in terms of logistics investment. There is a video (I'm not going to look for it to link it) that says the current car was designed using Microsoft Excel. It's a bit of an exaggeration, but they do use a spreadsheet for tracking all the car parts which, isn't really ideal. So each part costs more money because this is a 'money is time' issue, because instead of pushing a button to find out where a part is, what state it's in, or if the team needs more, someone needs to open a spreadsheet, sort the spread sheet, search the spreadsheet, and then go see if the spreadsheet is accurate (which it often isn't). So assuming an F1 worker costs $100 per hour to the cap, a McLaren employee can check the inventory of front right struts in 8 seconds, and a Williams employee can check in 20 minutes. Multiply that by 100 employees and 20,000 parts, you see how Williams expenses are eaten up by inefficiency. Williams is updating their logistics, but until that's done, they're always going to be behind anyone else, and that means having a supply of spare parts is both more expensive for Williams, and take more time. But yes, it's worth worrying over.
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« Last post by cosworth151 on March 23, 2024, 03:08:25 PM »
This makes me wonder about the finances at Williams. I thought all teams carried enough parts to build a car from scratch if needed.
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« Last post by Jericoke on March 23, 2024, 02:57:14 PM »
I think this is a good thing for Sargeant.
He's got 2024 to prove himself, and there is no better opportunity to prove yourself than adversity.
He now has to respond to this. Is he going to be crushed and fade away, or is he going to come back with fire and prove he belongs in F1?
100
« Last post by cosworth151 on March 23, 2024, 02:24:58 PM »
The ultimate in team orders. Sounds like something they would have done in the 50's.
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